


the sun will rise and we will try again

by behzaintfunny



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Gunshot Wounds, M/M, Married Couple, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 00:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14581314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behzaintfunny/pseuds/behzaintfunny
Summary: "From the day you decide to wear the badge to the day it is taken from your cold hands, you are at constant risk of all things brutal and painful. (...) His own body has been penetrated over and over by all sorts of bullets to the point of it being almost normal. Good day Harvey, how's your day been? Oh, mine? Yeah, just got shot twice again, it's been quite alright.One bullet. Jim's going absolutely insane over one bullet."





	the sun will rise and we will try again

It isn't often that Gotham is serene and quiet around them, or maybe Jim has gone deaf from the piercing sound of a bullet breaching through meat and muscle, but he likes to think the world's taken mercy on him.

 _Cops don't deserve mercy_ , he hears a crude and careless voice whisper inside his head. He sighs against his husband's neck. Its message has come across all too true and is keeping Jim uncomfortably awake at night. He clutches Harvey's body with as limited force as possible, not wanting to awake him but needing him to wordlessly tell him that it's going to be okay.

Like his father once used to say, we'll be stronger if we stay close together.

It does not take an outstandingly intelligent person to admit that it's human nature to cling to other people's warmth. We take comfort in being so close to something, or, in this case, someone, who radiates what we consider positive emotions. Whether you believe in something so strange like auras is of no concern but when your heart beats next to someone else's, the question is raised -- is it really by chance that the two of you share this beautiful serenity? Why is it that in a world of orchestras and virtuosos the most precious sound of all is the steady tune of your loved one's heart beating? Why don't more people learn to play the piano or sleep with a violin if that's the sounds that bring them joy? And above all, why is it that love has the right to dictate what's ethereal and soothing and what, not?

Jim doesn't know. He'll likely never find the answers to those rather absurd questions haunting his mind under the midnight sky. He is no philosopher and he definitely doesn't know much of the nature of emotions. He's a rather simple man, like millions beside him, who allows the cover of night to turn him into a nostalgic fool who raises far too many questions. If not for the basic logic then for the essential sanity should such questions remain unanswered until the end of all days. It bugs Jim that not everything can be proved and solved like the thousands of cases him and his partner have worked on throughout the years.

An immense amount of decades it has taken Jim to accept that some things are better off left untouched.

Under his fingers, the soft fuzz of his partner's chest. It is pleasing to his fingertips and slowly soothes him to sleep yet it is what is hidden underneath it that Jim's enamoured with. The steady, constant beat of his husband's heart. It serves as a constant reminder that the man displayed next to him is no soulless being but a creature that feels, hates and craves. Jim likes to think that so long as he can hear it, he is no longer lost. He inhales the heavy scent of Harvey's most basic shampoo as well as the salty sweat that adorns his neck. Under the hefty bedsheets and possibly a little drunk on feelings, Jim swears he could breathe only his scent until his last dying breath.  
He'd never let Harvey know just how big of an idiot and a sap he has become since they first fell in love. Not tortured, not pushed, not begged. The Gordons have always kept the remainders of their dignity snug against their side.

He hesitantly splays his right leg over his husband's lower half, seeking warmth and above all closure. Throughout the years, throughout all sleepless nights in hospitals as well as uneasy, caffeine induced ones alone at home, he has grown pathetically touch-starved. Jim supposes that if you brought up a dictionary filled with all sorts of meanings for said woeful phrase, at least ninety-nine percent of them would work for him embarassingly perfectly. He cannot get nearly enough of Harvey. The dark side in him wonders whether crawling into his skin and settling in his blood would give him the closure he so desperately seeks.

As for now, the leg has to do.

He allows his hand to wander further down where it's still consensual and comfortable, splaying his palm across Harvey's belly. He rubs it with feather light touches, only half aware of his doings as caused by the lullaby that is his husband's heartbeat. Harvey's stomach has always been one of Jim's favourite physical qualities of his, no matter how much they quarelled about it. From day one, Jim made sure that whatever complexes Harvey may have, they are not some unmovable force. Piece by piece, Jim removed them like an architect building his toughest bridge only in reverse. Whether it be his rather small eyes or his big, soft belly, Jim has made sure they are not burdens to Harvey but qualities he does not feel trapped with. They ought to be a part of him not by force but by choice -- he's learned to love and accept them because they're what forms him, not because they're perfect.

Jim leaves a single kiss on the back of Harvey's neck out of sheer will. He doesn't do it because it's a decent husband thing to do nor because he knows Harvey enjoys it. He genuinely has no coherent explanation for it. All he realizes is that his lips and his husband's neck are comfortably close enough for him to leave tenative kisses alongside its length. His eyes need not to open because the canvas that is Harvey's body is already so well imprinted in Jim's imagination. It allows him to create this special form of art, invisible and untouchable. With each single kiss he leaves a mark on the stained canvas working to what he likes to call his own masterpiece. So far as he knows the kisses are there, they are. Jim doesn't demand much more.

With the willforce of one single finger, he grazes alongside the traitorous intruder of his masterpiece. The bandage does not feel sticky or wet, at which Jim sighs with relief. Harvey himself doesn't seem to mind much but he has lost almost an entire night's sleep over said bandage, or rather what's underneath it. Cops get shot on the job, it's no biggie. From the day you decide to wear the badge to the day it is taken from your cold hands, you are at constant risk of all things brutal and painful. Common knowledge, you'd think. Yet, Jim's losing his head over how much blood has been spilled today and how dangerously close Harvey was to slipping off the thin edge of life. His own body has been penetrated over and over by all sorts of bullets to the point of it being almost normal. Good day Harvey, how's your day been? Oh, mine? Yeah, just got shot twice again, it's been quite alright.

One bullet. Jim's going absolutely insane over one bullet.

Or, it is not precisely the bullet that's giving him nightmares and toying with his thoughts, but the consequences of said bullet that could have been. This is exactly what his mother, the military and life as a cop all collectively have never taught him too well -- how to cope with loss and its posibility. Since that night in the car up to this night in under the sheets, it has been nugging in his brain and causing him all sorts of anxieties.

He takes a deep breath in, just like the doctor has instructed him to when she saw him crying his eyes out in front of the surgery theatre like a faucet that has been turned on.

"You're thinking loudly again." Harvey whispers, "I can feel it, you know? So much going on inside that head of yours I sometimes think it's going to burst open with feelings and whatever crap you hide inside there."

Jim smiles against the hairs at the back of Harvey's neck, "I was just thinking about how happy I am to have you."

'Sure, you were."

With one last highly anticipated kiss where Harvey's neck meets his shoulders, his mind finally quiets down. Maybe it's Harvey, maybe it's been him all along.

He doesn't ask. Not himself, not Harvey -- he says no more. He clutches his arm around Harvey's torso and settles his thigh more comfortably atop his husband's own.

"I love you, Jim." he hears Harvey whisper gently, "I always will."

No more words are exchanged under the heavy covers of detective Bullock's bed. The sun will rise and they will find time for them to be spoken aloud.

For now, it is just the matching heartbeats in what feels like eternal quiet.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Truce" by Twenty One Pilots, a song I once liked.  
> I of course own neither of the characters, just want them to be happy and in love like they deserve to be. This is a ficlet that has been mostly written at nighttime. Any mistakes I admit to.  
> Find me on Tumblr @ gordohn for more Gotham, Gordlock and everything under the sun.  
> Comments and kudos are much appreciated! <3


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